


Once Before

by EnvyBakemono



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-07
Updated: 2017-05-07
Packaged: 2018-10-28 22:54:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10841166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EnvyBakemono/pseuds/EnvyBakemono
Summary: Once upon a time, these things were true, but all things end, and the years of endless exile leave nothing but memories behind.





	Once Before

You are a Wayward Vagabond.

You were once a Warweary Villein.

You were once a lot of things. You made a stand, and paid for it in guilt and sorrow and night terrors that leave you restless with burning eyes.

The Betrayer spared you, and you still don’t know why.

You are alone, until you are not, and Jack Noir is here to fix his mistake.

—

You are a Windswept Questant.

You were once a White Queen. 

You were once a lot of things, but you made your choices with a heavy heart and crown; and the good of your people and your universe in mind. You did the best that you could. Your brow is lighter now, that much is certain.

You don’t think of yourself as kind. You’re only doing what you believe in. It has only started to hurt you, to wear away at the heart you’ve given freely and without resentment, when your lover steps out of the flower and opens his arms to you.

You didn’t realize how much the loneliness had begun to echo.

Ten seconds count down, and it’s ten seconds of comfort before Jack Noir takes you both - but together, together at least, and it’s something.

—

You are an Aimless Renegade.

You were once an Authority Regulator. 

That isn’t true. You still are. But the authorities have changed, and the rules have become hard to understand. The criminals are… people. You share fears and fates. Hopes and horrors. Dreams and desires.

Her hand is warm in yours.

When he appears - the beast that is everything you’ve learned to fear - you almost freeze. But he goes for _her_ \- your friend - and you know it’s time. You are a Judge.

You start to detonate the bombs. One by one.

But you pause at the last - authority marred by weakness - and the last thing you see is the face of your worst memory.

—

You are a Peregrine Mendicant.  
  
You were once a Parcel Mistress.  
  
You were once a lot of things. You were once naive. You set so, so many things in motion. You made a deal with a bearer of malice you could never have understood. You were the unwitting instigator of a doom written in the red blood of your fellow wanderers.

You find the ring and clasp it in your grasping hands.

You wait as long as it takes for you to breathe out.

Then you seize the opportunity to be something more than a passive participant in events unfolding.

You were once an exile.

Now you are a Queen.


End file.
